It's like London buses. You wait ages for one and then two come along at once.

Having endured 12 miserable years without an Olympic medal, British judo celebrated its second success in 24 hours when Karina Bryant claimed bronze at the ExCeL Centre.

The hulking, 33-year-old from Camberley staged her second thrilling comeback of the day to wrestle victory from the Ukraine’s Iryna Kindzerska in the heavyweight class and carry through the momentum from Gemma Gibbons’ silver on Friday.

It gave the Team GB women a perfect riposte to British Judo Association chairman Densign White, after he accused them of shying away from the sacrifices required to be successful.

Reward: Karina Bryant (right) gets her hands on a bronze medal for the +78kg judo

Show me the medal: Karina Bryant has won bronze in the +78kg judo

But Bryant has plenty of tales of sacrifice to tell and she knows about being patient too. This was her fourth Olympics, but the first where she left with a medal.

‘Although this is not the right colour it’s gold to me,’ she said, delighted with her prize.

Earlier this year Bryant was even appealing to strangers through a website for cash to buy a car.

Battle: Mika Sugimoto of Japan (white) got the better of Great Britain's Karina Bryant in the semi-final

‘I had a very old VW Golf and it spent more time being repaired than it did on the road,’ she recalled.

‘I kept missing training because it had broken down and my agent thought it was a good idea to set up a website appeal. But it didn’t raise any money and we closed it down. A lovely couple stepped in and helped me and now I’ve got a 10-year-old Mini which gets me about.’

Next: Mika Sugimoto is through to the final after beating Karina Bryant

The five-time former world championship silver medallist was hurt by her Olympic failures in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, but refused to be denied again.

Now she has her sights set on a Commonwealth Games appearance — and even refused to rule out Rio in 2016.

But there will be no medals from the men’s team after Royal Marine Chris Sherrington lost to Russian Alexander Mikhaylin, the European champion and three-time world gold medallist.